Danielle Laroque-Arena

Danielle Laraque-Arena, MD, FAAP, joined The New York Academy of Medicine as a Senior Scholar-in-Residence in 2019. She is President and Professor Emerita of SUNY Upstate Medical University, Adjunct Professor of Epidemiology at the School of Public Health, Columbia University and Associate Director of the Injury Free Coalition for Kids, a national program modelled after the Nova award-winning program, the Harlem Hospital Injury Prevention program.

Dr. Laraque-Arena completed her medical studies at the University of California at Los Angeles, earning a B.S. in Chemistry. Her internship and residency were completed at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania where she was also a Robert Wood Johnson Fellow in General Academic Pediatrics (1984-86). Driven to address the health needs of disadvantaged communities, she accepted her first academic position at the College of Physicians & Surgeons, Columbia University and Harlem Hospital Center where she rose to the rank of Associate Professor (1986-2000). In 2000, she accepted a position as Chief of the Division of General Pediatrics at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. She was promoted to the position of tenured Professor of Pediatrics and received the endowed chair as the Debra & Leon Black Professor of Pediatrics and became Vice-Chair for Public Policy and Advocacy. In 2010, she accepted the position of Chair and Vice President of the Maimonides Children’s Hospital of Brooklyn—the first woman and first African-American to hold that position in the 100-year history of the hospital, and was Professor of Pediatrics (Investigator Track, 2010-2015) at Yeshiva University, Bronx, NY. She was appointed the seventh President of SUNY Upstate Medical University on September 10, 2015, where she was the first woman and first African-American to hold the position.